


The Seven Ancestresses

by ShinyHalo115



Series: Ancestresses [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Fiction based on Mythology/Folklore and Nonfiction, Mythology References, Trigger warning for threat of sexual violence, sudden fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 06:53:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18615418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShinyHalo115/pseuds/ShinyHalo115
Summary: Stories from early human history.





	The Seven Ancestresses

**Author's Note:**

> Story is based on San folklore.

Between 146,000 B.C. and 122,500 B.C. in Africa

 

On a sunny day by the river in a savanna, Luamerava and her sister, who were both members of the Snake clan, were applying ochre to their dark skin to keep the mosquitoes away.  In the distance they saw a baboon trying to dig for ant larvae with a small stick.

"That baboon can't accomplish much with a stick of that size," Luamerava said.

A man named Pabo happened to be bathing nearby and overheard her.  Because he is part of the Baboon clan, he assumes she's talking about his penis.  "You won't think my stick is small when I put it inside you," he said.

"I wasn't talking about you!  I didn't even know you were here," she insisted.

Pabo was not listening.  He tries to catch her but they get away.  She was afraid that not only will Pabo rape her, but also kidnap her and beat her until she cooks something for him, therefore making him her mate-partner.

When she and her sister reached the camp, Luamerava tried to appeal to her clan to protect her.  "I am a daughter of the clan, and I need protection."

"You're being selfish putting your own desire above the safety of the clan," one of the old men said.  "Men take women, whether for pleasure or as a mate-partner to show their prowess and women adapt to it.  That's how it always has been, and always will be done.  It is the natural way."

Luamerava ran away to a nearby large rock, and sat on top of it with her watery eyes pressed against her knees.  "If that is the natural way, then I'm going to be unnatural," she said.  The person she really wanted as her mate-partner was Qwan.  She and other women not only had sex with him, but offered to be his mate-partner even though he was considered an outsider to others because he was a male from another clan.

Many years ago, Qwan's mother Wani was taken from another clan, and a few days later her young son came into the camp to be with his mother.  He was tolerated because at the time he was a young child.  Now that he was a man, many believed he should leave, but he insisted on staying with his mother.

She went to him during the night.  "Oh Qwan, I want to have sex again in case I'm taken by Pabo."

They went to a secluded cave and when they were done, he fell asleep.  She takes his hand-axe and goes outside to cut some vines to tie him up while he slept.

In the morning, like most women, she wakes up earlier than the men to prepare the sunrise meal.  She catches a toad that she found and prepares a fire to cook it, along with some herbs she gathered.  When he wakes up she forces him to eat it.

"Why did you do this?" he said.

"I didn't want to do this, but the clan will not protect me.  This way we can be unnaturals together."

"I will kill Pabo for you, if you swear to the Ancestors that I will be the only person you sleep with your entire life."

She was speechless at his unusual request.  It was known that many men and women with mate-partners will sleep with other people in the shadows.  The important thing was for the woman to cook, and for the man to give meat to the woman and her children.  She would agree if it meant getting rid of Pabo and, unlike other women, being with someone she chooses.  However...

"Will you swear the same thing to me?"

"Yes."

"Then I will do it."

Qwan placed red ochre on his dark face, as was customary before a battle, and left.

"Where is my woman?" Pabo said when he arrived, "I will take her to my clan to teach her manners."

"There are no women for you here," Qwan said.  He pulls a sharpened stick out of his afro and throws it.  Blood spurts out of Pabo's neck and he falls over dead.

Luamerava was happy that she didn't have to worry about Pabo anymore, but the elders ruled that her, Pabo, Wani, and Pabo's half siblings and their mate-partners should leave.  The family had a male from another clan, and they did not want Luamerava to remain in her own clan.

They decided to head south as a new clan, but before they left, Luamerava poisoned the old man who said that Pabo should take her.  Because he was old, those in the Snake clan assumed he died of old age.  

**Author's Note:**

> Bibliography
> 
> African Myths of Origin by Stephen Belcher  
> Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Modern by Richard Wrangham  
> The Seven Daughters of Eve: The Science That Reveals Our Genetic Ancestry by Bryan Sykes  
> Sex and War: How Biology Explains Warfare and Terrorism by Malcolm Potts and Thomas Hayden


End file.
